St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1887-04-08
A PRINCE FOR PARTNER.
How Graceful American Girl
Danced with Royalty at q Ball.

An American girl. Miss Mary Fearn.
daughter Of Walker Fearn, the American
minister to Greece, writes to one
of her New Orleans friends as follows con-
corning royal ball, says the Picayune:
The gentlemen were all made to stand on
one side of the room. the ladies on the
other, quite like Quaker meeting. A
broad passage was thus formed, down
which the king and queen, the prince and
princess and members of the court passed,
bowling to the right and left.
The queen was magnificent in white
satin, brocaded in silver, trimmed with
white roses and diamond fringe. Her
whole bodice was covered with sapphires.
surrounded with diamonds, and her head
and neck blaze of jewels. The royal
circle, as it is called, was then formed in
one corner of the room. where the royal
family dance the quadrilles and sit during
the cotillon.
The king gave the signal and then dane
ing began. One very amusing feature was
the manner in which the round dances were
begun. When the first bars of the waltz
were played an aid-de-camp stood in the
middle of the floor and called to the people
to make circle. on the edge of which
stood the couples about to dance, each
dancer grasping his partner firmly by the
waist and preparing at the earliest possible
moment to plunge into the maddening rush
OF the deux-tempS, Which is danced here
exclusively. and which is, perhaps, trife
less rapid than the galop. The queen gave
the signal and started round the circle with
her partner, then the princess, after her the
crown prince and then all the other couples
followed one right after the other, around
and around, never turning to the left but
on and on. faster and faster, each couple
entertaining but one notion the one which
characterizes that exciting sport of a slide
on the ice, when there is only burning
anxiety lest you should swallow up the man
ahead of you. or in turn be swallowed up
by the man behind you.
The deuX-temps is certainly great fun,
but it requires no small amount of agility
and eXhausts great deal Of breath. You
must be prepared to hop blithely over the
PROSTATE couple who may have happened to
fall ahead of you, or if such calamity
should happen to yourself to s'lie low
while the oncoming couple clear you as they
would hurdle. At the palace ball there
were not many round dances, for the cotll-
ion, which is the feature of the evening,
begins early and lasts three hours. In be-
tween times supper is served. have forgot
ten to say that the king dances the square
dances with the wives of the foreign minis
tiers, the queen with the kings aid. de-camp
and the prince with the young Greek girls
This is the usual etiquette. You may
imagine my amazement when the prince
walked across to me and said: 81 have
been looking for you. l want you to dance
the cotillion with me-" He had already
sent word to me to dance opposite him in
the quadrille, and 1 certainly did not expect
more. was naturally very much pleased
at the compliment on my own account and
because there were many Americans pres
ent who seemed to take a national pride in
Americas being first in the field"